Plum Health Blog
How to Save Money on Albuterol in Detroit Michigan
How to Save Money on Albuterol in Detroit Michigan
I saw a tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders this week where he says that “An asthma inhaler that is sold to the Canadian people for just $27 should not cost the American people $242 for the EXACT SAME inhaler.”
Fortunatel, at Plum Health, we are able to wholesale medications and we’re able to get Albuterol for our patients for about $38.50, an 84% savings from the $242 quoted by Senator Sanders in the above tweet.
This holds for a broad range of medications here at Plum Health, from blood pressure medications, to antidepressants, to acid reflux meds, and mediations to control diabetes.
As we all know, medication prices are higher in the United States than in many other developed nations.
Insulin in the United States costs 14x what it costs in England.
Insulin in the United States costs 11x what it costs in France.
Insulin in the United States costs 9x what it costs in Germany.
Insulin in the United States costs 7x what it costs in Japan.
Again, at Plum Health, we are able to wholesale insulin for our patients, and get it for them for free in some cases. This goes a long way towards empowering our patients to take great care of themselves, as we take the high cost out of their life-saving medications.
Thanks for reading,
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC
How Plum Health Saves Patients Money on Prescription Costs
This week, I got an email from a prospective patient. Here’s their question:
Good morning Paul,
I have a question about Plum Health. I have a new job but do not have health insurance. I take five prescriptions.
For a 30 day supply it costs me
Simvastatin 20mg - $14.41
Phenytoin 100mg ER - $29.11
Hydralazine 50mg - $15.31
Metformin 500mg ER - $11.65
I also take Jardiance. However, it is between $500 and $700 dollars.
I was wondering what could possibly be done in my case. I pay out of pocket for the 4 medications listed above but the Jardiance is another story.
Thank you for your time.
It’s crazy that this patient is paying roughly $70.33 each month for four generic medications. Here’s what I sent back:
thanks for the note. Here are the prices at Plum Health for those medications:
Simvastatin 20 mg is $0.90 for a 30 day supply
Metformin 500 mg ER is $1.10 for a 30 day supply
Hydralazine 50 mg is $4.40 for 100 tabs (more than a 3 month supply)
Phenytoin 100 mg is $18 for 100 capsules (more than a 3 month supply)
It looks like you'd save about $60/month on your medications if you joined our practice, and you'd be able to have access to a high-quality family physician.
Thanks for reaching out and thanks for considering a membership with Plum Health! I hope you're having a great November 2021 all things considered, and let me know how I can be helpful - Dr. Paul 313.444.5630
To learn more about our service, head over to https://www.plumhealthdpc.com/
To sign up for our service, go to this link: https://plumhealthdpc.atlas.md/enrollment/index.html?account=nEzWixRVa2gKZ7CJ91e7&wmode=opaque
This is just one example of how we save patients money on their medications.
Thanks for reading,
-Dr. Paul Thomas at Plum Health DPC
How You Can Save Money on Your Next Prescription Refill in Detroit
Why Do Generic Medications Cost So Much Money?
There's a wide variability in the cost of generic medications from pharmacy to pharmacy. Researchers at Saint Louis University surveyed 175 pharmacies and asked for their prices for the meds Lisinopril, Carvedilol, and Digoxin. These are common heart failure medications.
The researchers found that the prices for three generic medications ranged from less than $20 to more than $150, with the highest price for all three medications being $397 for a 1 month supply!
This is way too much money. If you spent $150/month on medications alone, it would cost $1800 for the year. In contrast, if you spent less than $20/month on these same medications, it would cost less than $240 for the year.
This is a difference of $1,560.
Unfortunately, these costs have the greatest adverse effect on low income communities because they may not have the transportation resources to drive to these less expensive pharmacies. In Detroit, 33% of residents do not have access to reliable transportation, leaving these folks to the potentially higher costs pharmacies in lower income neighborhoods.
Middle Men and How They Inflate the Cost of Your Care
First of all, understand that when you buy medications from a retail pharmacy, you will likely incur a retail markup on your medications. This markup can be 10%, 50%, 100%, 300% or more, as illustrated in the Saint Louis University study cited above. So, shop around and find the best price before setting foot into your neighborhood pharmacy.
The next thing that inflates the cost of your prescription medications are middle men, namely pharmacy benefits managers. These PBMs are supposed to negotiate the formulary (or the medications covered by your insurance company) and their related costs at the local pharmacy. However, the system is full of self-serving PBMs who make more money based on inflating the costs of your medications.
To illustrate, you should be familiar with the term “clawback.”
A “clawback” happens when the patient's copay is more than the pharmacy's cost for the drug. For example, if a customer's prescription copay is $20 but the pharmacy's cost is $5, the PBM claims -- or “claws back” -- the extra $15, which it keeps as profit.
That’s right - if your son or daughter has strep throat, and you want to buy Amoxicillin, and the cash price is about $5, as it should be, but the PBM “negotiated” the price to be $20, and you buy that Amoxicillin with your insurance, you’d pay $20 for the $5 medication and the PBM keeps the difference.
Infuriating, I know! I’m just as mad about this issue as you are.
How You Can Save Money on Your Next Prescription Refill
So, how can you save money on your medications? First, ask around for the best price at different pharmacies. If your insurance-based price is too high, ask your pharmacist for the cash price. Only until recently, pharmacists had a gag order, where they couldn’t tell you the price of the medication if it was cheaper than the “negotiated” insurance-based price.
Another possible solution is Direct Primary Care. DPC doctors like myself buy medications at wholesale prices and give them to our patients at cost, or with a 10% mark up to cover the cost of shipping and handling. For example, at our clinic Plum Health DPC, we can wholesale these same three medications for about $18/month.
I created this video to more fully explain what I mean, see below.
- Paul Thomas, MD
If you’d like to be a part of our direct primary care service at Plum Health in Detroit or Farmington Hills, Michigan, you can sign up, here:
How to Find the Best Prescription Drug Prices in Detroit
As many of us are aware, the price of prescription drugs can be astronomical. People are paying for a retail markup at pharmacies, often paying 10 - 20 times as much as the drug actually costs at wholesale. Even worse, insurance companies often charge more for medications purchased via your insurance plan than the medication would cost if you bought it at the cash price.
Why is this important to me? I'm a Family Doctor in Southwest Detroit and I took an oath to do no harm, and for me that oath also includes doing no financial harm. So, I am focused on lowering the cost of health care for my patients and the greater community.
How to find the best prescription drug prices in Detroit
If you're like many people, you probably go to the pharmacy with your Rx card or prescription card from your health insurance company. You then have the pharmacist 'run the card' to find out if you get a discount when you purchase medication.
What you should do instead is ask the pharmacist, "what is your cash price for this medication?" Also, you can ask for any coupons that the pharmacist might have. If you are dissatisfied with the price, then pull out your insurance card and ask for them to 'run the card'. This will ensure that you have a fair price point to start from.
In addition, you can shop around for the best prescription drug prices in Detroit or in your local community by comparing prices online. Using tools like GoodRx.com can help you find the exact price for the medication you need.
Using Direct Primary Care to Lower Drug Prices
There is another option to find even lower prescription drug prices. That option is called Direct Primary Care. In the Direct Primary Care model, doctors aim to provide as much value as possible for patients' health care dollars. In simple terms, we DPC doctors try to lower the cost of health care.
What does this look like? It looks like 70% - 90% savings on prescription drug prices in Detroit and the Metro Detroit Area. Just check out this chart and see for yourself the actual, wholesale cost of the medication compared to the price you would pay at the pharmacy with the retail pharmacy mark up, or the inflated price.
Original image taken from Consumer Reports.
How do we do this? At Plum Health DPC, we buy the medications at a wholesale price and then we sell them to our patients at-cost. This means if we buy a bottle of 1000 blood pressure medications at $10, each pill costs 1 cent. Then your monthly prescription cost for that blood pressure medication is 30 cents.
In the above example, we are able to get Pioglitazone (Actos) for $4.30 per month, Celecoxib (Celebrex) for $6.47 per month, Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for $7.04 per month, Atorvastatin or Lipitor for $2.09 per month, and Clopidogrel or Plavix for $4.28 per month. The total monthly cost would be $24.18 for our patient, and that is a huge cost savings compared to the nearest retail pharmacy.
By lowering the cost of medications, we can improve access to primary care services, better control blood pressure and diabetes, and therefore decrease the risks of heart attacks, strokes, and complications of diabetes in our community. This will lead to lower rates of disability and death, or a healthier society.
We are proud to make a difference in this way. Thank you for reading and learning about the cost of prescription drugs, and let me know if I can help you or a family member lower the cost of health care.
Sincerely,
- Dr. Paul Thomas, MD with Plum Health DPC